Welcome to creature atelier!

Hey guys,

We are really glad to announce the most anticipated project from us - the creature atelier blog. We will have the task to bring together and present some of the best local concept 2d and 3d creature artists. As first posts here we'll start with presenting the main authors who have started the creature atelier. Our common idea is to design creatures on various topics which we will discuss and develop after that. Our goal is to have fun from the whole thing, to help each other during the development of the concepts, share knowledge, make overpaints on everybody's images and put all of this here. We hope for great start to our first topic so... let's waste no time and may the fun begin!

It is a strange process that I did just for fun and it heavily relies on making happy accidents.

It all started from a quick abstract thumbnail that I did in photoshop just using the lasso tool , filling up a randomly created selection and then draw on top features that made it look more like a creature than a random blob. Once that was done I jumped in 3dsmax, mapped this thumbnail onto a simple 3d plane and of this plane I cut the different parts of the creature and made them 3dimensional. You can see that the 3d model is really rough.

Why doing this? Well first of all I really like to experiment in my free time, so that was one of the reasons, but second and most important is that once the thumbnail is in 3d I could actually twist it, bend it, make different variations and poses out of it for free and in no time. For example just by playing with a symmetry modifier and rotating it in different angles you could come up with many unexpected variations.

The slide below shows how two of the variations sparked up my imagination and I ended up with two quick sketches of possible creature designs.Nothing weird here (apart from the badly composed slide), just regular sketching.

And this one made its way to a more refined sketch later on.

I've played with this weird process earlier, you can see another example here (the bottom of the post).

Hi guys, one sketch from mel. The creature that I chose is tooth fairy, but not the cute version that we know:)This is the first sketch, coming soon: some other variations probably and colored version as well.

Tried to emulate a Huante look on this one... otherwise I imagined the creature to be some kind of night stalker with the nose thingy illuminating his path in a light spectrum his species can detect...or maybe for attracting prey, or mates :] hope you like

I`ve been drawing for as long as I can remember. Mostly self taught, I was influenced by computer games as any kid is. I remember drawing scenes inspired from games like Doom, Warcraft and Prince of Persia when i was not in front of the computer playing them. Eventually started work in Masthead Studios where I met the fine examples of bulgarian youth and creative talent that are presented in the Creature Atelier :)

Hi , guys here is my take on the warewolf...I've started with a speedsculpt, but I'm planning to explore some more variants through overpainting and hopefully push the design further. Critiques and comments are not welcome - they are a must ! :D

The time has come for creature atelier’s first round ! The theme we choose together is “New-age creatures of the night” . The most well knows representatives of this category are vampires, werewolves ,banshees, the bogeyman, ghouls, but we can chose something thatwe are not so familiar with, it only need to be somewhat supernatural creature of evil that shows itself after dark.Wait ! I forgot the interesting bit of information that explains the “new-age” at the beginning of the theme. We have to explore a new , fresh idea of a night creature, something that differentiates from the classic look we all are used to see on movies, games and so on. It may be "shadow demonic shapeshifting owl creature" or something else, but the important things to stress on are originality and exploration, strong silhouette, to help each other during the process and most importantly have fun !

Good luck everybody, and don’t forget to post your work in progress so we can discuss them.

I was practicing drawing and sculpturing since my early childhood. In2001 I've discovered digital art and then I've become aware of howmuch greater freedom and creativity it allows. Two years later I'vestarted to work in CG industry creating high resolution models forfilms and video games, low poly models , texturing, lighting, renderingand concept Illustrations. In 2008 I've become part of The Aaron SimsCompany team as modeler and designer.

I grew up in town at the foot of a small valley, part of the Balkan mountain range, where after you prove that you are good for a hunter and you can supply food for the rest of the tribe, you receive a spear and bow and live with many honors .. . did not become a hunter and I got to stick with the computer. I started messing with 3d apps and not long after that I fell in love with CG. What do people when they are in love? The answer is simple – hit it with the bat first then drag it into the cave…that’s when it became time to buy a new PC.

I worked as a character artist and technical art director at Masthead Studios and now I'm freelancer. Prior to Masthead I worked as 3d modeler for advertising. I live in Sofia, Bulgaria, play lots of games, become involved in the creation of little apps and tools for artist and work hard to look , listen and learn from everything I can.

What follows is a bunch of 3d models and sketches of creatures that I did.

Who am I?
My name is Sergey and I was born in 1984 in Sofia (Bulgaria)
After finishing National school of fine arts (Graphic - Painter) , had the opportunity to be in our Technical university - Industrial Design specialty.
I worked in the field of graphic design for almost 10 years - 5 of them in the game industry.

Somewhere between socialism and something else, in the very begining of the upcoming long and cold winter in 1985 was born Miroslav with a marvellous for the time almost 5 kilograms weight. Till the age of 8-9 the primary observation from teachers was to accept Miro as infant prodigy, BUT some years elapsed and they found that they are and were terribly wrong. For the biggest regret mostly for Miroslav, he didn't evolve at all from then... the facts tell that it is either because of PC games or the invading age of the naked women on the home screen... I've been drawing since the age of 16-17. I was playing games for more than 10 hours a day when suddenly my biggest inspiration came from Warcraft 3. Samwise and his art team inspired me to start pushing the pencil very hard.After lots of long, painful nights of hard work and skills improvement I decided to step into digital art. I was hired as concept and texture artist at Masthead Studios. Then I made it to an art director and now I am happy freelance artist with many crazy ideas.

Creature atelier is a collective of Bulgarian artists working in the field of creature design for art and entertainment. It's a place to showcase marvelous creatures, share tips on how to create them and have fun while doing it.